


A Different Kind of Painting

by Silential



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Body Worship, Chubby Hux, Hux decided a corset might be useful, M/M, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, humilitation, mirror fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:12:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6875701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silential/pseuds/Silential
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that he finally sees his portrait, Hux finds himself speechless for the first time in years. He’d known, of course – how could he not – but he hadn’t imagined, couldn’t <em>imagine</em>… </p><p>Or, Hux hadn’t expected to look quite so heavy in the portrait he comissioned six months after becoming Emperor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Kind of Painting

**Author's Note:**

> This is a belated birthday present for kyluxmagnus! 
> 
> Come talk to me about chubby Hux or any Hux at all really, at somethingstately on tumblr.

Hux hadn’t thought anything could consume his waking thoughts more than his ascendency. Years spent carefully sowing the seeds of loyalty to himself rather than to Snoke, biding his time for the season of harvest. It was a constant preoccupation he hadn’t thought capable of being surpassed. 

But that was before he’d hurtled to the top, and the concept of his legacy began to take root. 

A legacy mandated evidence, solid and real and intended for perpetuity, as much propaganda for a future generation as the posters of his righteous image plastered on every alleyway had been for the current one. There were holo-images, sure, but they were grainy, ephemeral things. Portraits were the true means to this end – and lots of them. 

It wasn’t easy, deciding the backdrop of what was to be the second of his no doubt many official portrayals. The first had been obvious, capturing a scene from the day of his victorious rise over six months before; the soon to be Emperor, still in his dress blacks with fist over heart in traditional Imperial salute. Through the viewport behind him, Coruscant buzzed like a hive over his shoulder, swarming with satellites and ships both Imperial and former Resistance. A seared hole through Snoke’s chest, a carefully worded offer of détente dispatched to the rebels – and like that, the furor that had consumed the Galaxy withered to ash as the ink dried on the New Galactic Accords. 

_The General Triumphant_ , he believed the painting was called. 

It currently hung on the opposite wall, the not-quite gaze of its subject surveying the scene below. 

After due consideration Hux had chosen the fireplace of his winter home for his second commissioned image. Stately and elegant, it smacked of old world grandeur, tying an imperceptible line between the Galaxy’s current ruler and the great empires that had preceded him. He’d eschewed coat and cape, instead relying on alabaster slacks and vest over a plum dress shirt. Something clean and simple, pure and graceful, to contrast the finery he intended for the third portrait. 

The white brought out the fire of his hair, a brazier in which a gold circlet sat ensconced. 

Compared to a holo-image, a painting with real canvas and oil required a great deal of time. His demanding schedule necessitated multiple sittings, and he’d already posed, one arm on the mantle as the other hung at his side, for three. A firm believer in the futility of micromanagement, he’d left the artist, a man chosen from thousands of others for his talent, to his craft, and hadn’t yet requested to view the work. 

Now that he finally is, Hux finds himself speechless for the first time in a long, long while. 

It isn’t with choked pride or barely contained delight, as he distinctly remembers following the unveiling of his first painting. No, as his stare rakes over the delicately flourished wisps of paint this could only be described as horror, mixed with the sickly sweet burn of shame dropping down his gullet. 

He’d known, of course – how could he not – but he hadn’t imagined, couldn’t imagine… 

Stars above, this was different than the short glances in the mirror as his attendants fussed over him, helping to perfect every single detail of his persona in a fraction of the time it would have taken him alone. 

The artist, a man whose name he found he couldn’t summon at the moment, shifts from foot to foot at his elbow. “Is it to your satisfaction, Your Imperial Majesty?”

Cognizant of the other man’s quickly deepening frown, Hux’s tongue must be pried from the roof of his mouth, stuck fast with the mortar of embarrassment. “I’ll need time to consider it,” he murmurs, unable to tear his gaze away. “You’re dismissed.” 

He hears rather than sees the artist retreat, footsteps distinct on the polished wood floor. It isn’t until the click of the door falling back into place reaches his ears that Hux finds his lungs creaking to life again. 

Turning his attention to the other portrait above the door, he can’t escape the thought that it hung there now precisely to dispense judgment. His parade dress fit him like the gloves over his fists, starched lines celebrating the slender form underneath. The collar rose high on his throat, and despite the roomy cut of his trousers, he knows his thighs to have occupied so little of them, most of the fabric for show. He fixates on the trim waist, forcing himself to look, to remember what it felt like to buckle his belt on the tightest setting high on his torso. 

This was a man in control, he thinks. 

Young. Relentless. Hungry. 

The thought twists his lips into a wince, glare circling back to the half-completed portrait on the easel in front of him. It’s not finished, but it doesn’t need to be. The soft doughiness of his jaw, the indignity of a double chin, both unavoidable signs staring back at him in the mirror day after day in the same way they currently stare back in paint. The embroidered patterns of his vest are intricate but that’s not what the eye is drawn to – his, or he can imagine, anyone else’s. No, the eye draws downward to the substantial belly pushing out over his trousers, sliver of shirt underneath cresting above where his vest can’t completely stretch to cover it. Even when he was thin he’d always had a softness to his stomach, the threat of lovehandles waiting for the opportunity to expand. He’s lost his natural waist, he knows, the slight dip above his hipbones. It’s swelled with flesh, thickened and fattened with each sweet treat, each elaborate meal, that his old belt would snap if he tried to wear it at the same height. 

On one level, yes, he had been aware of what was happening; he did possess a mirror, after all. But somehow a mirror doesn’t hold the same finality, the same gravity, as seeing what it is that another person sees when they look at you. 

Denial is a powerful drug, he’s learned, one whose pull only becomes stronger with each use. 

Ren had, on his behalf, requested an update to his wardrobe some weeks ago, citing a desire for more tastefully crafted styles. The honeyed lie went down easily, simpler to accept than the truth, and Hux willingly shoved away any and all thoughts over what might have been the true motivating factor. Nevertheless, he was far from an idiot, and many men had found themselves on the wrong end of a blaster for assuming so. The rich suppers he indulged himself in on a frequent basis, so different than the standard tasteless rations he’d subsisted on for the entirety of his life, were partly to blame. And his power was such that now anything was immediately available, any delicacy within reach mere moments after his giving voice to the whim. 

It was a heady feeling, controlling the vast resources of thousands of worlds – almost as good as the first blooms of flavor on his tongue after biting into a Yavinian chocolate.

And, he reflects darkly, he’d had quite a number of those. 

The gears already clicking in his head, Hux tears free of the painting’s hold and strides, quickly and with purpose, to the door. 

\----

The moment the box is in his hands, he sends away his attendants. A ruler’s aura and credibility were generated every second, and he didn’t need them seeing this. 

Instead he feels an entirely different set of hands at his back, the trace of a slightly too cool fingertip over the bumps of his spine prickling the skin there. As he feels the touch, he opens his eyes to meet those of its owner, reflected in the depths of the glass not inches from his face. Hand on either side, Hux leans into the wall just behind the stately wooden frame of the full length standing mirror. 

The position adds insult to injury, the full curve of his gut on display, but Kylo had insisted. 

The bastard. 

Hux watches as Kylo extracts his quarry from the nondescript box on the dresser, turning it over in his large hands as he deliberates the way it’s supposed to be applied. When he gets the orientation right by chance, Hux grunts and jerks his head, wanting to hurry this up as much as possible. 

He was due for another sitting in an hour, and quite frankly, being almost pressed up against the glass was starting to fray at whatever confidence he’d worked up to carry through with this. 

Forcing his anxiety into irritation, Hux brushes away the fire-lock of hair falling into his eyes. 

Kylo doesn’t say a word as he slips the white folding panels of the girdle around the front of Hux’s torso, string dangling freely like a hangman’s noose. Hux tightens his muscles and breathes in sharply, endeavoring to reduce the work the corset is going to have to do to tease a waistline from what currently passes for his. His Knight Protector wastes little time in starting, cord passing through the grommets in a movement methodical and reverent in a way Kylo usually wasn’t. 

The top lacings tighten easily enough, but he’s midway through the first half when Kylo stops, tugging futilely on the cord in his hands. “You’re going to need to suck it in.” 

Hux nearly bites through his tongue at the remark, hissing, “I already am.” 

Kylo snorts, and in the mirror Hux can see the ghost of a grin on the other man’s lips. The gentleness in his expression is at odds with the roughness of his touch, the necessary jerk of the lacings, this time with more force. Hux grits his teeth and withstands the motions, strong enough to destabilize him were he not counter-balanced away. Soon after, Kylo moves to the bottom, working his way upward to meet with his progress from the top. 

Laced at last, but barely so, even Hux can see that as he straightens. The ivory panels hold him in as much as can be helped, cinching in the soft rolls a good few inches. 

It would have to be enough. 

“Maybe you should have gone with a bigger size,” Kylo supplies, his eyes glued to the press of belly, the strain on the eyelets as it tries to expand to its true size. 

Twisting to catch a glimpse of his back – lacing almost overtaxed and bulging, a far cry from the delicate lines he’d seen on some planets’ aristocrats – Hux replies with as much calmness as he can muster, “Too late for that.” 

He stops his hands from touching, but for kriff’s sake, the fat on his lower back seems particularly insulting. 

Still, inelegant or not, the girdle completes its task with admirable durability. His shirt and vest button neatly over it, the latter this time falling closer to the waist of his slacks. Erring on the side of safety, however, he opts resignedly for a large admiral’s coat, the broad shoulders and forgiving shadows an apparent necessity. He’ll claim later it’s to echo his military roots, but it’s obvious to the two of them that it’s to distract from and balance his waist. 

The attendants return on his command as Kylo slips from the room, an avalanche of hands falling upon him to prepare the last, finer details. They fix his hair, his collar, his everything, and in twenty minutes Hux is standing again at the fireplace, nails biting crescent moons into the supple leather of his gloves. 

The artist stares back at him, blinking as he tries to process the costume change. 

“As you can see,” Hux gestures over his body in a measured sweep, “I’ve re-evaluated the composition after yesterday’s viewing. The perspective wasn’t to my liking.” 

“I see, sir.” The artist only continues to stare, wide-eyed and perplexed. 

Sighing, Hux finds himself appraising the painting over the door, gaze resolutely clinging to Coruscant rather than the man before him – or the clear-eyed glare of General Hux, so full of contempt and judgment. He can barely choke the words out. “My good man, history doesn’t need to know all the gory details about its Emperor.” 

At this, realization dawns at last in the artist’s eyes, his eager nod a prelude to the manner in which he diligently goes about correcting his prior work. 

For the first time in months, Hux struggles to get his expression under control as he takes up his post, leaning against the mantle. His face is flushing, he knows it is, but wisely for the fate of his tongue, the painter does not remark on it. One of the virtues of committing to the long and inefficient process of a painting is that such details can be overlooked and edited. His customary pallor should be easy to substitute. 

Later, after the artist has packed away his things and Hux has retreated to his private quarters, he strips as swiftly as he is able. He peels back layer after layer from overheated skin, his face heating in a different way as he finally reveals the source of the dull ache in his ribcage and the flame licking, shockingly and incessantly, at his insides. 

He’s already half-hard. 

Ever his shadow, Kylo stands some ways off to the side. Staring, as he always seemed to be, features expressionless to the untrained eye. To his, however, he can see the desire in the slight hitch to his throat, the dart of his tongue. 

Hux reaches around, fingers plucking at the taut laces. Slick with sweat from his gloves, he can’t find purchase, and the knots slip infuriatingly through his fingers. Pinning Kylo with a glower, only half-meant, he asks, “Care to help?

Gliding behind him as if to comply, Kylo doesn’t, merely quirks a smile before entwining his arms around him. Hux’s schedule, more hectic than usual with hammering out the details of the newest system willing to join the Empire, had prevented any sort of meaningful intimacy in over a month. He shivers at the touch, settling into the chest at his back with a hesitance he hadn’t felt in years. 

Before he even realizes it, the words tiptoe into the open. “I can’t believe I had to use this.” 

“I can. You’ve been getting heavier and heavier since you took power. Everyone sees it.” Hux’s grimace darkens, his flush deepening as Kylo taps lightly against the stiff front panels. “Sees _this_.” 

He’s not talking about the girdle, Hux knows. Still, he keeps his tone in control, suppresses the slight waver. “I haven’t heard a word about it.” 

Kylo bends his head, pulling back just enough to press sucking kisses to the side of his neck. Each one tugs at the invisible line trailing to Hux’s half-hard cock. In his own time, Kylo detaches himself long enough to whisper archly, “Of course you wouldn’t. No one is going to mention it – not to you, anyway.” 

“What have you heard?” Hux asks warily, on the knife’s edge of deciding whether Kylo was seriously talking Empire politics or merely baiting him, wanting to play with the hot curl of shame they both know goes right to Hux’s cock. 

They hadn’t played with the topic of his weight before. The desire pooling low and thick in his stomach, despite his anxiety, has him regretting that fact. 

“Nothing I’m concerned about. Idle talk.” The last sentence comes out as a mere puff between Kylo’s lips. 

Of course he wouldn’t be concerned, Kylo has all the diplomatic finesse of a rock. It still doesn’t answer his question. “Idle talk can sink an empire.” 

“It was hardly the rumblings of insurrection. I would have come to you if they were serious.” 

The tilt of Kylo’s head, the quiet beseeching look in his reflected gaze, are what finally mollify Hux and allow him to relax enough to breathe, “Tell me what you’ve heard.” 

“No one finds it particularly surprising that an Emperor indulges. What they find so shocking is that it’s you,” Kylo murmurs into the air by his right ear, in a way he knows Hux loves, “you, so austere, so disciplined. They talk about how the great General Hux has let himself go.”

Hux watches in the mirror as Kylo’s hand trails down the restrained curve of his belly, fingers loosely encircling his cock, twitching ever more to life with the touch. Thumb and index finger looped just under the head, his palm brushing against the shaft, he tugs lightly, stretching and easing as Hux hardens fully. One hand on his cock, other still clamped to his hip, Kylo’s breath is warm in soft gusts against his ear. 

“How could they not? This belly softening day by day, so bloated and heavy, telling the Galaxy how the Emperor can’t resist his own desires.”

His words make Hux’s cock twitch, precome leaking to coat the thumb swept casually over the head. 

With a final stroke, cruel enough to leave it there, Kylo leaves him to finally start untying the laces. He prolongs it more than he has to, teasing the bits of skin revealed as he loosens each rung. When he has them mostly loosened they almost pull themselves apart the rest of the way, losing the battle against the body underneath. It’s odd, his nakedness in stark comparison to the dark robes at his back, but the mirror only heightens the contrast. Hux lets himself breathe fully, relishing the deep pull of air, and Kylo traces at the red lines cut into his waist, letting the stiff fabric fall to the floor before grabbing at the flesh above his hips. 

“I remember when my hands could almost meet around you,” Kylo claims, and Hux knows that while that’s not true, it’s probably not too far off. “They can’t anymore.” 

As if to illustrate, Kylo squeezes, the soft flesh rippling from where his fingers sink into it. “Your waist is too thick for that now.” 

“I’ve hardly heard you complaining,” Hux shoots back shakily, eyes greedily locked onto the indents surrounding each fingertip. 

“That’s because I’m not,” Kylo replies simply, as if the time he’d spent in his Emperor’s bed hadn’t already spoken for him. “Far from it.”

Kylo’s eager stare sears into his flesh, and Hux is reminded with a warm jolt of how long it had been since they’d fucked. As if plucking the thought from his head, and to be honest he probably was, Kylo says, “I want to see you bouncing on my cock.” 

Hux nods weakly, captivated by the slowly tightening grip, and a soft moan slips from his mouth before he can stop it. He tries to turn, but Kylo only holds him in place more forcefully, a grin causing his eyes to narrow. 

“Tomorrow.”

Brows furrowing, Hux finds the iron of an Emperor’s pronouncement creeping into his voice without thinking. “And why not tonight?” 

“Because tonight, I want to enjoy looking at you.” 

As he speaks, his hand slowly creeps from its position at his hip, palm smoothing downward over Hux’s substantial middle to grasp Hux’s cock, heavy and wanting between his legs. Fluid has collected at the tip, a breath away from dripping to the floor, and Kylo collects it against his fingertips, slowly circling and smearing it against the smooth skin of his head. 

His hand retreats along Hux’s length, fingers wrapping tightly around the shaft and pumping. It’s been long enough that it isn’t going to take much, Hux knows, he’s a kriffing virgin with how close he is. 

Knowing it by looking at him, the way Hux’s cock and neck are beginning to flush, Kylo presses closer to his back, rough layers chafing against the already sensitive skin. His grip tightens, pace picking up. 

“Look at you. Such a creature of comfort.” 

Kylo’s other hand comes round to cup his balls as best he can, long arms a saving grace. He holds them firmly, but not enough to hurt, thumb drawing against the skin there. The soft swipe of his fingertip is so at odds with the quickening pace of his hand. 

“You have servants to pamper you, to feed you, to fuck you,” the words puff against the shell of his ear, eliciting a barely there moan, “and now you have to deal with the consequences. They’re right here, bulging over your waistband and filling out your thighs – and the people are going to wonder, what happened to the slim General?” 

Hux breath comes faster, and he slams his eyes shut. 

“There’s only a fat Emperor in his place.” 

The words have him coming, a blinding flash bursting behind his eyes as warm come stripes his stomach. He’s never been one to be overly loud, but a low groan leaves his lips, the aftershocks weakening his knees. Kylo helps him through it, fist still tight, ruthless pace slowing as faint pulses wet his knuckles. 

Hux opens his eyes, meeting the fever-bright gaze, pupils blown wide, peering back at his own. 

“I’ve been meaning to do that for awhile,” Kylo explains, and Hux wonders how close he is to coming himself under the dark layers. 

With one last pump and a soft gasp from Hux, Kylo removes his hands, eyes falling to his fingers as they slid through the wet dripping over their tips. He reaches out to caress the matching badges on Hux’s belly, slick fluid against soft skin. The sight elicits one last twitch from his softening cock. 

Kylo’s come on his belly would look good too, he thinks. 

Hux files it away for another time.


End file.
